By Mohamed Junayd
MALE (Reuters) - The&nbsp;Maldives&nbsp;Supreme&nbsp;Court&nbsp;confirmed on Sunday that&nbsp;jailed&nbsp;former&nbsp;President&nbsp;Abdulla&nbsp;Yameen&nbsp;Abdul Gayoom is barred for the country's September&nbsp;presidential election.
The ruling is another setback for the Progressive Party of&nbsp;Maldives&nbsp;(PPM), which declared&nbsp;Yameen&nbsp;its candidate before his December conviction for corruption and money laundering over kickbacks&nbsp;from&nbsp;a private company while he was&nbsp;president.
The party last week challenged the Election Commission's block on his candidacy because he is serving an 11-year jail sentence, arguing the commission had misinterpreted the constitutional prerequisites for&nbsp;presidential candidates.
The commission's decision "that Abdulla&nbsp;Yameen&nbsp;Abdul Gayoom is ineligible as he doesn't meet the conditions stipulated under article 109 is the correct decision," Justice Husnu Al Suood ruled.
Yameen, the half-brother of former dictator Maumoon Abdul Gayoom, was seeking a comeback in the South Asian archipelago after losing power in 2018. He campaigned against Indian influence in&nbsp;Maldives, raising concerns in New Delhi.
Close to strategic shipping lanes in the Indian Ocean,&nbsp;Maldives&nbsp;is a focal point of competition between India and China for influence in the region.
The PPM's coalition partner, the Progressive National Congress, has said it would field a candidate if the&nbsp;Supreme&nbsp;Court&nbsp;declared&nbsp;Yameen&nbsp;ineligible.
President&nbsp;Ibrahim Mohamed Solih is seeking a second term despite his Maldivian Democratic Party splitting in June after a public fallout between Solih and another former&nbsp;president, Mohamed Nasheed.
Nasheed, after losing the party's&nbsp;president&nbsp;primary to Solih, formed a party called The Democrats, which has announced its own candidate.
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(Reporting by Mohamed Junayd in Male; Writing by Nidhi Verma; Editing by William Mallard)

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Maldives Supreme Court bars jailed ex-President Yameen from race